News & Analysis

SEC cuts Tilton fine following Supreme Court ruling

The agency reduced the $200 million disgorgement penalty handed to the ‘Diva of Distress’ after the Supreme Court ruled these fines could only be backdated five years.

-

The Securities and Exchange Commission has reduced a fine it issued to a private debt manager following a Supreme Court ruling that disgorgement is subject to a five-year statute of limitation.

The agency cut $45 million from the $200 million penalty issued to Patriarch Partners CEO Lynn Tilton in January in relation to fraud charges connected to three collateralized loan obligation funds.

It is the first reduction the agency has issued since the Supreme Court ruling which said these fines can only be applied to wrongdoing that took place in the five years preceding a complaint’s filing, as reported by pfm.

Tilton, dubbed the Diva of Distress for turning around troubled companies, was charged with defrauding investors in the Zohar funds in March 2015. The SEC alleged she provided false and misleading information about loan asset performance. She neither confirmed nor denied the charges.